“We admitted we were powerless over addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable,” is the First Step of the Twelve Steps to recovery, the one without which no progress can be made.

Your addiction is not unique. Millions before you have had to confront the reality of a life out of control. Each one has had to face the simple and obvious conclusion that, if you cannot manage your life, you need help from outside, from a Higher Power, from friends, from family, from others who are in recovery.

Addictions UK was established by a group of recovering addicts, alcoholics and carers and run by recovering addicts with good clean time. All treatment and support staff are also recovering addicts with excellent clean time. This helps us to remain client focused – offering shared hope, strength and experience.

Like most organisations that help people to recover from addiction we offer the understanding, support and leadership of people who “have been there”, who understand how hard it is and whose lives demonstrate the possibility for progress.

What makes Addictions UK different from others is our experience and focus on home-based treatment, enabling you to continue at work and to remain in the supportive environment of family and friendship as you begin and progress through recovery.

If you are ready to join the many who have admitted we were powerless over addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable and think we may be able to help you, please contact us now.

The lives of many people are underpinned by religion. Each such individual accepts, to a greater or lesser extent, a set of traditions about the Divine and our relationship to the transcendental.

Both ordained and unorthodox teachers have explored and shared methods for reaching out from human limitations and penetrating the barely discernible. Often their insights and advice overlap and, in so doing, can make deadly disputes seem irrelevant.

It would be easy to assume that the “spiritual” side of human experience is dependent on accepting the existence of one or more “spirits”. But that doesn’t follow.

Spirituality is an internal adventure which may be inspired and guided by all sorts of external stimuli. The awe which flows from the experience of a wonder of nature may or may not include a sense of it having a supernatural cause.

Not only is “Secular Spirituality” plausible but there may be as many different versions of it as there are religions (even setting aside the idea that there are as many religions as their are people, each individual’s vision and growth being unique).

There is a difference, too, between ideology and metaphysics. The latter is the contemplation of what transcends the physical and natural or observable. A meditative exercise may or may not lead to a fundamental change in someone’s perception of how things are and so cause them to revise their set of appropriate responses in word and deed.

Well, all this may be a bit cerebral but there are two simple conclusions to be drawn from it all:
people may have a profound spirituality which is not dependent on Divinity.
you can respect someone’s spirituality even if you can’t define, understand or share in it.

Whatever the challenges you face, in the end you have to conquer them for yourself. But you are not alone, Family, friends, sponsors and others are ready to help you and build your strength and resources. And those are probably already greater than you think.

Most people would say that they want to learn from someone who has all the answers. But if we think about it, we know that, if we could take help only from someone who is perfect and infallible, then we would wait for ever.

After a little Thought, we realise that we need is a guide who has experienced the journey and knows how hard it can be. We look to people who are still keenly searching for the best way forward – and who have the humility not to pretend to know it all.

We talk disparagingly about “the blind leading the blind” as if there is always an alternative.

Someone once said, “I don’t know all the answers and I am not certain of the way, but I have an idea where, in all this darkness, the light might be and if you take my hand we can journey there together.”

Wise addicts never talk about a cure but about being in continuing recovery. So if you have made progress on that journey, go ahead and share with others what has worked for you. If you have made progress, found what works, even learned what fails, then others can benefit from that knowledge.

There is a myth that an addict has to loose everything before he can start to rebuild his life. But from early on AA recognised “high bottom” and “low bottom” – different points for different people at which the realisation of the need for help is triggered.

Denial is both symptom and cause of the disease of addiction. As we try to persuade ourselves there isn’t a problem, at least not a big one, we slip further into the illness and the denial becomes stronger.

For some this vicious circle will not end until they realise that life simply cannot get any worse. When you have lost job and home and family and your whole universe is a pavement and a bottle it’s almost impossible to remain in denial about the consequences of addiction.

But for some people, even loss of reputation is the end of the world. Or maybe seeing the pain of a loved one parts the veil of denial and reveals a vision of how deep the pit can be, even before you hit its floor.

However you define it and at whatever point it comes, it is possible to realise how awful the depths are and, in seeing the darkness we begin to “see the light”.

Realising that “we are powerless over our addiction”, that “Life has become unmanageable” and that “only a power greater than ourselves can help us” is both the most challenging and the most hopeful moment. It is in the realisation of our weakness that we begin to find strength and knowing our need for help makes us ready to accept it and begin recovery.